U.S. airlines are suing to block the Biden administration from requiring greater transparency over fees that the carriers charge their passengers, saying that a new rule would confuse consumers by giving them too much information during the ticket-buying process.
The U.S. Transportation Department said Monday it will vigorously defend the ruleagainst what it called “hidden junk fees.”
American, Delta, United and three other carriers, along with their industry trade group, sued the Transportation Department in a federal appeals court on Friday, asking the court to overturn the rule.
Why should you be allowed to advertise the price without the tax. Companies should already knock the applicable tax rate when they write these ads and could easily advertise “$x.99, $y.99 with tax”.
Maybe your comment is meant to cover what I’m about to say, too, or already does, but not even brick and mortar stores list prices on a shelf with tax included. I’m somewhat OK with this because I know the tax hasn’t been figured in yet. But that’s all. Maybe those shelf prices should also be adjusted, but at least they don’t seem as bad as having to account for them PLUS other hidden fees.
They do in most other countries.
I’m ignorant on how sales taxes work in other countries, but do they have variable rates based on not just what state but also what city you are in? The sales tax in Santa Monica (10.25%) is different from the sales tax in Beverly Hills (9.50%), and they are both within the city of Los Angeles.
Other countries do have VATs that differ in regions. Having different rates in different areas is not a reason to not have the end price after tax. It turns out that calculators exist and are pretty easy to use before printing off the sale sticker.
The real reason is that the tax is on the sale itself and not on the product. It’s a silly distinction. Many states do not actually allow you to display the post sales price.
I think that they could do it in the US without trouble as long as it’s a brick-and-mortar retailer and someone is buying in person, but it’s also fair to point out that US sales taxes are considerably lower then VAT in Europe, so it’s less of a factor.
For online stuff, they’d have to know location in order to provide a post-tax price, since the state of the purchaser is a factor. I don’t want to have to hand out my location while anonymously browsing online retailers, so I’d rather not have them give a post-tax price (or at least have the option to browse with pre-tax prices).
Or they advertise a price and then make a slightly different amount per city and so on. That’s how it is done sometimes for stuff sold in multiple European countries for the same price.